Fieldwork in Britain - November 2006 / March 2007

The Tablighi Jama`at
is a transnational Islamic missionary and lay preaching
movement, which was founded in 1926 by Maulana Muhammad
Ilyas in Mewat, India. It is associated with the purist
theological tradition of the Islamic seminary at Deoband
in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The movement's
global headquarters are located in the Nizamuddin area of
Delhi, India. It has an estimated 12 million followers across
the world. For earlier research on the movement see the
project
description and a photo essay on Pakistan.
There are also articles
online on the movement written by this author.

The Central Mosque (MarkaziMasjid) in Dewsbury, North-West England, is known
to be the seat of the European headquarters of the Tablighi
movement (Tablighi Markaz). It is located in the
Savile Town area and also houses an Islamic seminary (Jami`a
Ta`lim-u'l-Islam) teaching about 200 boys to become
a religious scholar (`alim), or cleric in the Deoband
tradition. The school was founded in 1982 by the Tablighi
elder Muhammad Zakariyya.

The bookshop
Darul Kutub located next to the Tablighi Centre in
Savile Town, Dewsbury, trades in Islamic books and specialises
in supplying the teaching material for Deobandi Islamic
schools (madrasas) in Britain. It also keeps a steady
supply of books on the Tablighi movement in English and
Urdu, printed in India, Pakistan, South Africa and Britain.
It also trades in cassettes with recordings of Tablighi
elders at their various congregations at the Tablighi Centre
and elsewhere.

This mosque on Christian
street in East London served as the Tablighi centre until
it became to small for the growing number of adherents.
It is also called Markazi Mosque, i.e. Central Mosque, like
the one in Dewsbury, indicating its connection with a Tablighi
centre (markaz).

The new Tablighi Centre
for London is now based in the Masjid-i Ilyas in East London
named after the founder of the movement. It is however so
far little developed as a religious centre. Its main attraction
is its vast space where it can accommodate the growing number
of believers attending the traditional Thursday night ceremonies
(shab-e juma').

The Islamic
Dawah Academy in Leicester (www.idauk.org)
was founded by Shaykh Muhammad Salim Dhorat who runs his
own programme of Islamic preaching (da`wa), teaching
also secondary-level (madrasa) and graduate-level
(Jami`a Riad-u'l-`Ulum) Islamic classes. The centre's
students support the Tablighi activities (above). Dhorat's
cassettes are circulated by an Islamic bookshop connected
with the centre (below). The centre has successfully conducted
for many years its own Tablighi-style annual youth congregations
(Tarbiyati Conferences) which are also attended by Tablighi
elders from various countries.

Another school
aligned with the Tablighi movement is the Islamic school
(Darul Ulum al-Arabiyya al-Islamiyya) in Bury, Holcombe,
north England (www.inter-islam.org).
It was founded at the order of the Tablighi elder Maulana
Zakariyya by his disciple Maulana Yusuf Motala in 1974.
Today it teaches more than 300 boys to become Deobandi clerics.
The students actively participate in the preaching tours
of the Tablighi Jama'at.
The school is considered to be the reference institution
(madr-e `ilmi) of other Deobandi schools with Tablighi
affiliation in Britain.